All Shook Up

by Shelley Pearsall

  “Josh,” she said, reaching out to hug me despite the fact I didn’t want to be hugged. A half-dozen shiny bracelets slid down her arms, so there was this jarring, clanging noise in my ears, as if I was being hugged by wind chimes. “I’m Vivian. It’s wonderful to finally meet you.” She moved to one side and gestured to the tall and skinny girl who was standing on the porch behind her. “This is my daughter, Ivory, but you’ve probably met her already in school.”

  The girl behind Viv appeared to have just stepped out of a 1960s time warp. A knitted rainbow beret was perched on her very straight, shoulder-length brown hair. She was wearing a fringed leather vest and jeans with ’60s-type patches of daisies, yellow smiley faces, and peace signs sewn all over them. That’s what gave me my first clue.

  My dad. Viv. Peace signs. Elvisly Yours….

  The girl looked over at me and a smile slid slowly across her face. I couldn’t tell for sure if she was the one who had sent me the notes, but I swear you could see she was enjoying a private little laugh about something inside her head. “Hey,” she said cheerfully, lifting up one arm in a small wave. “How’s it going?”

  “Would you like to stay here or come with us, Josh?” Viv asked as she took the clothes hanger I’d been holding uncomfortably in one hand since opening the door. I pretended to give this a few seconds of thought before I told her thanks for inviting me but I wanted to hang out at home instead.

  Except then, time-warp girl announced she wanted to stay, too. “I’ll just wait here with Josh until you get back,” she told her mom, as if this was a totally polite thing to do—inviting yourself into somebody else’s house without even being asked. And her mom (being a totally polite person, too) said it was fine if her daughter stayed.

  “See you.” Ivory waved as her mom headed back to the car. Then she brushed past me like one of those fanatics who come to your door with their Bibles, determined to convert you right then and there. Ivory didn’t have a Bible in her hand, but she still gave me the same uncomfortable, edgy feeling—as if she was going to convert me to something. I just didn’t know what it was.

  “Nice house,” she said, finding her own way into the living room. Her eyes flickered over everything, taking it all in like she was memorizing it. My dad’s living room is pretty worn-out, to be honest. The old tan couch was left over from the years when my mom had lived in the house. It had permanent butt dents in the cushions and round coffee stains on the armrests. We hadn’t picked up our Zippy’s pizza box from the night before, either, so the whole room smelled like stale pepperoni and cheese.

  I stood uncomfortably in the living room doorway, completely clueless about what to say to Ivory. Back in Boston, I was friends with some girls, and they were okay when you were with a group of them, but getting stuck talking to one girl always made me nervous. My neck would start to feel warm and prickly, or I’d get an itch on my scalp. Or worse yet, my eyebrow. God, I hated that eyebrow thing. The longer a girl talked to me, the more my eyebrow would feel like some large biting insect had landed on it.

  So I definitely didn’t want to be stuck hanging around in my dad’s empty living room with a girl I didn’t even know. I plucked the remote from between the couch cushions. “Here’s the clicker,” I said, sliding it across the coffee table, “if you want to watch some TV.” I was hoping Ivory would get the hint that she was supposed to stay in the living room and entertain herself until her mom came back.

  She didn’t.

  She followed me into the kitchen, where I had left my plate of half-eaten spaghetti sitting on the table when I got up to answer the door. Moving smoothly toward the kitchen window, Ivory pushed aside the curtains to peer outside. “Nice yard.”

  I watched as Ivory circled the rest of the room, picking up things, silently studying them, and then putting them back down. She nosed around the spices in the spice rack, picked up my dad’s guitar-shaped salt and pepper shakers, and shook a tin of gourmet popcorn with a picture of Elvis on the lid. “All shook up,” she said with a laugh, as if I would think this was funny. Which I didn’t.

  In fact, my neck was starting to feel as if it was being attacked by fire ants. “Do you want something to eat—some spaghetti or something?” I asked because I couldn’t come up with anything else to keep the girl from examining every detail of our life.

  Ivory shook her head. “The label on your jar says meat sauce.” She pointed an accusing finger at the empty glass jar sitting on top of the stove where Chef Josh had left it at the end of his show. “I’m a vegetarian.”

  Although I didn’t really believe meat sauce contained anything other than a few meat-flavored chemicals, I wasn’t going to argue with a vegetarian wearing a rainbow beret. I just concentrated on twisting my pasta as neatly as I could onto my fork, as if I was going for the Olympics in spaghetti twisting. Maybe if I stopped talking to the girl completely, she would get the hint. It was a technique that worked with my dad sometimes.

  But Ivory seemed oblivious. Pulling up a chair, she sat across from me with her elbows on the table and her chin resting on her hands. She had chipped purple nail polish and a silver ring around her right thumb.

  “Does your dad ever say anything about my mom?”

  I could feel the red fire ants crawling farther up my neck. Great. Perfect. Now I was going to get grilled about my dad’s love life by my dad’s girlfriend’s daughter. (Or whatever she was.)

  Note to Dad: In the future, don’t date women with daughters my age.

  I thought about telling Ivory that my dad dated so many women it was hard to keep track of them all—but instead I ended up saying that my dad didn’t talk much about his dates. “No matter who it is,” I said, shoveling another forkful of spaghetti into my mouth. Ivory was quiet for a while, as if mulling this over.

  “So what’s your opinion of Listerine?” she asked, changing the subject.

  “Listerine?”

  “Our school—Charles Lister. We call it Listerine,” she said, pulling her feet up onto the chair and wrapping her arms around the front of her legs. “What do you think of it?”

  “Oh yeah, Listerine.” I forced a laugh, as if I’d already figured out this name myself. Which I hadn’t. “It’s okay, I guess.”

  A sneaky look spread across Ivory’s face. “And how about my notes? Have you seen the messages I’ve been leaving on your locker this week?” she asked.

  That’s when everything finally became clear. The notes weren’t coming from some middle school gang planning to torment me for the next four months. They didn’t have some sinister, hidden meaning. They had been left by my dad’s girlfriend’s weird daughter. Didn’t I look like an idiot, right?

  Not wanting to reveal that her peace-sign note had caused me to skip the bus and walk two miles home that afternoon, I told Ivory I didn’t really like notes and stuff on my locker. In general.

  “No?” Ivory picked up an apple from the bowl of fruit on our table and rubbed it on the corner of her shirt before taking a large, loud bite. “I thought they’d make you feel like you had some friends at Listerine.”

  Note to Ivory: Friends sign notes. They don’t leave demented smiley faces and bizarre messages.

  “School’s fine.” I could feel my shoulders tensing up as I tried to get Ivory to understand what I was saying. “And I’d rather not have everybody knowing about my dad being Elvis, so you don’t need to keep leaving notes on my locker and writing things like ‘Elvisly Yours.’ Everything’s good at school.” I hoped this sounded convincing.

  “What’s wrong with people knowing about your dad?” Ivory studied me. Her eyes were dark brown and had an unsettling way of staring at your face for too long without blinking. “I think it’s really cool.”

  “I don’t want people talking about it, that’s all.” I could tell my voice was getting a nervous edge to it and my shoulders were moving even closer to my ears.

  “You must be a Leo,” Ivory said, taking another loud apple bite. “That’s why.”


  “A Leo?”

  “Your sign—you know, Scorpio, Libra, Aries. When’s your birthday?”

  “The beginning of August.”

  Ivory gave a knowing smile. “That explains it.”

  “What explains what?”

  “Why you’re like you are about your dad.” Ivory pointed a purple fingernail in my direction. “You’re a Leo. That’s why. You worry too much about what other people think of you. That’s a Leo.”

  I wanted to say there was no way that somebody who had met me for the first time about a half hour earlier (and who had watched me eat a plate of spaghetti and that was about it) could know what I was like. And I also didn’t believe a bunch of stars could tell much about me, either. But Ivory had already moved on.

  She reached for the morning newspaper, which was still sitting on the table, and asked if it was okay if she did the crossword puzzle. “If nobody’s done it yet,” she said, digging through her purse, looking for something to write with.

  “Sure, go ahead,” I said, secretly hoping it was the kind of thing that would keep her busy until her mom got back. A few clues like ACROSS: Edible Asian squid. DOWN: Small river in Mozambique would be helpful. I headed into the living room to watch some television and, fortunately, Ivory didn’t follow me.

  About an hour later, Viv returned. “Well, I got to the hotel just in time,” she announced loudly as she stepped into my dad’s house. Even though it was dark, a pair of sunglasses was still perched on her copper hair. Plucking the glasses from the top of her head and shoving them into her purse, she said, “I got your dad’s outfit to the dressing room right before everything was supposed to start. You should’ve seen how the place was set up, Josh. It was a big wedding. Expensive.” She drew out the word to emphasize it. “But Jerry had the crowd in the palm of his hand. One of the hotel staff let me peek through the door for his opening song. I told them I was Elvis’s girlfriend.” That long laugh again. “He sang ‘Blue Suede Shoes’ first. Have you seen him do that one?”

  I thought about answering, no, but the Summerland Mall probably did.

  “Well, the stage is dark, and then Jerry comes out. He starts singing slowly at first, but when he gets to the ‘blue suede shoes’ part, he begins dancing like Elvis. He gets down on one knee at one part and moves to the music and strums a guitar—really, you wouldn’t believe it.” She shook her head. “I was just amazed at how good he was, standing up there onstage all by himself, acting and singing in front of all those people like he wasn’t even nervous.”

  Note to Viv: You can stop talking anytime now.

  “He’s getting better and better, don’t you think so?” Viv looked at me as if she expected me to agree, although in my mind there was no difference between my dad being a good Elvis or a bad Elvis. The problem was “being Elvis” in the first place. So all I said was that he practiced a lot.

  “Where’s Ivory?” Viv glanced into the living room, where the TV was still blaring with nobody in front of it.

  “The kitchen.” I pointed. “She’s working on a crossword.”

  Then Ivory magically appeared behind us in the hallway. She glided innocently out of the kitchen as if she hadn’t been standing there taking notes about every single word that had been said.

  “Did you and Josh enjoy talking and catching up on school?” Viv asked.

  Note to parents: What do you expect us to answer—no, we hated each other? Please don’t ever put us in the same room again?

  Ivory cast a polite smile in my direction. “Sure,” she said.

  At that point, I would have predicted there was zero possibility of a friendship developing between the two of us, despite what our parents might have hoped. Ivory and I were complete opposites, that was pretty clear. And with her knitted beret and hippie outfit, she was dangerously close to being the kind of freak I stayed away from like the plague.

  But Ivory didn’t see it that way, I guess.

  As she and her mom walked to their car, Ivory glanced back at the screen door, where I was waiting to turn off the porch light once they reached the driveway. It was a warm and muggy night. Clouds of gnats swarmed around the door, but even with the bugs and the dim pool of yellow light, I could still see what Ivory did when she turned. She lifted two fingers, grinned, and flashed me a peace sign in the darkness. Ivory, it seemed, was not going to give up easily.

  15. Solitaire

  I left the Harpy’s job application on the kitchen table that night, hoping my dad would see it when he got home. I put one of his guitar-shaped salt and pepper shakers on the left-hand corner so I could tell if he did. The salt shaker was still in the same place the next morning. And my dad didn’t wake up until it was almost lunchtime. Even then, he looked half asleep as he shuffled into the kitchen in his old blue robe.

  “What’s up, Josh?” he said, squinting at me as if I was surrounded by a too-bright light. “Man, I’m beat this morning. What time is it?” He rubbed his eyes, which had dark smudges of makeup underneath them. Mascara? Eyeliner? Jeesh.

  “Eleven-thirty.” I moved a jack of spades in my Solitaire game. It was my fifth game of the morning, and I hadn’t won a single one yet.

  “God, is it really that late?” my dad croaked hoarsely, glancing toward the kitchen window. “Where did the morning go?” He moved over to the counter to start the coffeemaker. I watched him scoop the coffee carelessly into the machine like he did every morning. Grains scattered across the counter. “So,” he said, sweeping up the mess with the side of his hand and dumping it back in the canister. “What did you think of Viv?”

  “She was okay.” I tried not to sound very convinced.

  My dad shook his head. “I’ll tell you what, she saved my butt last night. I don’t know what I would’ve done if she hadn’t brought that stuff over. I’ve got to get my act together and be more organized like your mother, right?” he said, coming over to the table with his coffee and a big box of Cheerios tucked under his arm. “Viv’s pretty different from your mom, isn’t she?”

  I could feel my defend-my-mom side starting to come out. “What do you mean?”

  “Just how she dresses and acts—kind of a nontraditional person, I guess,” he said, sitting down. I slid my cards over to give him more space.

  “Mom’s like that sometimes,” I insisted, although right then I couldn’t come up with any examples that would qualify as nontraditional except for the fact that my mom had season tickets to the summer theater in Boston and once took a pottery class. She also wore flowery-type scarves sometimes.

  “Viv owns a vintage clothing store in town,” my dad said through a mouthful of Cheerios. “It’s called Viv’s Vintage. She sells all kinds of old clothing. Not old like worn-out, but old as in antiques—you know, stuff from the past.”

  Clearly, Ivory did most of her shopping there.

  “So what did you think of her daughter?” my dad continued. “Viv said Ivory came along so she could meet you.”

  I could feel my face redden as I told my dad she was nice but not really my kind of person. Hoping he would just drop the topic altogether, I pretended to concentrate on how to move a five of diamonds to another spot in my game. But my dad took a long swallow of coffee and said, “Maybe you could hang out with her at school or go to the movies with her or something like that. Just to be nice.”

  “Dad—” I gave him a disgusted look. “Just stop it.”

  I think he got the message. Changing the subject, he began describing how great the show had gone after his costume had arrived. How the bride and groom were completely surprised.

  Note to Dad: I’ll bet they were.

  “They thought they were just getting a little video show with photographs from their families and childhood and that kind of stuff. They didn’t know their friends had hired the King to perform!” my dad said, switching to his Elvis voice. “You shoulda seen the bride’s face when I walked over to her table and sang ‘Can’t Help Falling in Love’ at the end of the set. Man, I did
n’t even screw up the line about how the river flows surely to the sea. I always forget ‘surely,’ but this time”—he snapped his fingers—“perfect.”

  Before he started performing the whole song for me, I figured I would point out the Harpy’s application, which was still sitting on the table. Tugging it out from underneath the salt shaker, I explained how I had seen a great job on my way home from school. “I got off at the wrong stop,” I lied, not wanting to reveal the whole story of the Post-it notes on my locker, “and I was walking past Harpy’s when I saw the sign about needing help in the store. The guy told me they could probably hire you this weekend if you wanted.”

  Dad spent about five seconds skimming the top page and didn’t even turn to the second one, which was the application itself. “Thanks, Josh,” he said, sliding it back across the table, “but I’m having way too much fun with what I’m doing now.” Breaking into a smile, he leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. “You know what some old guy told me last night? That I sounded exactly like Elvis. He said if he closed his eyes, he couldn’t tell the difference.”

  I wanted to shout at my dad: Don’t you get it? I found you a job. A real job. With benefits (whatever that meant). They said they could hire you tomorrow. At least you could give it a little thought instead of going on and on about how much you sound like some old guy’s idea of Elvis.

  Sitting there, I had the strange feeling that my mom had probably been in this same chair once, looking at the same blue-checkered kitchen wallpaper, feeling the same frustration at my dad. I’d heard stories from my mom about how little money they’d had when they were first married. Nobody could break a leg or hit a tree, Mom told me, because they had no cash to fix anything. Sometimes, we still used that saying with each other. “Don’t break a leg or hit a tree,” we’d joke whenever either one of us was going out somewhere.